Good touring wheels at a good price!

alfablue

Having just taken delivery of my Condor Heritage I had intended to buy some Mavic A319 or A719 rims handbuilt on Tiagra hubs. Parker-International were doing these at a good price (about £140 the pair), but they now seem to have stopped doing Mavic!

Can anyone suggest an alternative source?

Failing that, what about alternatives - I want rims that will take 30 or 32mm tyres, but hope to avoid the excessive weight of the Rigida Sputniks. The Rigida Zac 19 is a possibility, but are these really of good quality?

I do have a nice set of Open Pro's but I think they are too narrow for 30mm tyres (according to the spec, anyway).

Anything else?

Any ideas welcome!

alfablue

Anyone tried or got an opinion on Exal LX17 rims? Spa Cycles use them, they are a bit lighter and narrower than the alternatives (17mm internal width rather than 19mm) so should be good for 32mm tyres - any views?

iain_j

Mine's got A319 rims on Deore hubs. Don't know the price of the top of my head but seem to recall they weren't expensive at Wiggle. They're indestructible - never had to tweak the spokes in two and a half years of riding, and only just opened up the hubs for the first time and they were still in mint condition.

marksteven

hi give Harry Rowland a call he specializes in this kind of thing ive got several paird of his wheels

Chris James

Aren't Sputniks Rigida's touring rims?

Looks like Parker offer them.

harpo

+1 for Harry

He just built me a pair on Mavic rims. Super strong build.

Just tell him what you are looking for and he'll advise you on what you might want depending on clearance, tyre size, drop out size etc.

http://www.harryrowland.co.uk/7436.html

dilemna

Did you not get Monty at Condor to build you a set? I've had several sets of wheels on Open Pro CD rims on Chorus, Ultegra and XT hubs 32s and 36s over the years and all have remained as strong and straight as on the day he built them. I have used 23,25 and 28C tyres on them no problems carrying just me or the whole sheebang in my panniers.

andrew_s

alfablue wrote:

Anyone tried or got an opinion on Exal LX17 rims? Spa Cycles use them, they are a bit lighter and narrower than the alternatives (17mm internal width rather than 19mm) so should be good for 32mm tyres - any views?

I just got a pair. I wanted 17mm or thereabouts so I could go down to 25mm if I wanted. That is a bit too narrow for the common 19mm rims. Open Pro and the like are really up to 28, and A719 etc are down to 28. There's not a lot of choice if you want to use road and mildly off-road tyres on the same wheels.
They build up nice and easily, or at least the front one did (rear still in progress). I'll be using them with discs, so I won't get a view on wear rates.

andymiller

marksteven wrote:

hi give Harry Rowland a call he specializes in this kind of thing ive got several paird of his wheels

Yep that's what I was going to say. Although last time I bought a wheel from him, he was having trouble getting Mavic rims.

Personally I'd stick a 30mm tyre on OpenPros. The recommendations about maximum tyre widths always seem a bit weird: if you look on the Mavic website, they say 28mm is the maximum tyre width for Open Pros but for 317s (which have the same width as Open Pros) the maximum tyre width goes up to 2.3 inches. I'd have thought that 30mm would be fine.

Sputniks are more of an ultra heavy-duty 'trekking' wheel. Heavy, but very strong. Chrinas are the equivalent to the Open Pros.

prawny

I just got some commuter wheels from parkers, rigida chrinas on tiagra hubs and the build wasn't great. I'd give one of the more renowned, less bargainous places a try next time.

I've had to true both wheels in less than 1000 miles, the rear lasted about 40 before it developed a wobble. Tiagra hubs are lovely and smooth for the price though.

sirmy

The RIgidas are only 150g more than the Mavics which on a loaded tourer isn't really tat important and the Sputniks are extremely strong - get them on some LX hubs from SPA (£140 ish) and you'll have no problems

andrewjoseph

I'm looking to get halo aero warrior rims on hope pro II hubs for our tourers.

more info here